Glitches
Chapter 8
I’d never seen Yolanda so upset in my life. Which was saying something really. She had gone from screaming fits of vitriol to sobbing fits of hysteria. I couldn’t even get out of her what she was so upset about. It was an hour into this mess and I still wasn’t sure what she was saying.
I had been fast asleep in my bed one minute and the next minute I was being screamed at a velocity and a rapidity that was equally startling. Already she’d broken two lamps and a photo of the two of us. Which didn’t have the desired effect I’m guessing. I’d tried to get up and pull on some sweats but she wouldn’t have any of it. I wasn’t going to be moving any time soon apparently. So I sat there in my boxers being berated by Yolanda without stop.
Eventually she slowed down long enough to take a breath and I jumped in. “Yolanda, sweetheart. Can you please slow down and explain?” And for some reason this didn’t go over well at all.
“Explain? Explain? I have been explaining. You are an ignorant pig and a complete and utter loser as a human being. I hate you more than I’ve hated anyone in my life and I would like you to do me a favor and throw yourself to your death. I don’t know what’s so hard about this concept to understand really. I hate you I hate you I hate you.” At this she went to topple over my dresser but she couldn’t move it. The thing was an immovable beast passed down to me through my grandfather and was made out the hardest walnut imaginable. So she ran over to my desk and shoved everything on to the floor.
“Woah, woah woah!” I yelled, desperately trying to get her to stop. I didn’t really care much about the stuff. But I did think she was going to do something really very stupid here soon if she didn’t calm down quickly.
“You want me to stop? I’ll show you stop.” Her eyes were wild as she said this. They were wide open and having difficulty tracking anything specifically. She was beyond enraged. She was clinically insane. In that moment I was certain of it. “Let me tell you what you’ve done to me. You’ve made me the laughing stock of my family. You’ve intentionally embarrassed me as some sort of sick joke. You hunted me out for some reason and now you are exacting your revenge.”
I just had no idea what she was talking about now. Nothing made sense at all. Revenge? For what? Why? What was she going on about?
“Yolanda, you need to calm down. You are going to hurt yourself. Or me. Please sit down and take a deep breath. I would be happy to talk with you. But I just can’t even make sense of what it is that you are saying right now.”
Another bad move on my part. I think I was 0-12 so far over the past hour or so. She exploded again in a righteous fury that all bit lit her eyes on fire and caused smoke to come out of her ears. And then the scariest possible thing happened. She calmed down. A wave of calm slid over her face and her demeanor instantly changed. Instead of the wild eyed look of a spooked horse she had a slight smile on her face. Instead of the red puffy pouting look she took on a motherly condescending perspective.
I was screwed now, and I knew it. I took the reprieve to snag a pair of crumpled jeans off the floor and slide them on. Then I grabbed a hoodie and wearily slid it over my head, never once taking my eyes of Yolanda as I did it. But then she surprised me by turning her charm on, which almost always worked with me. This time though I was just incredulous she was attempting it. I had to admit though, I would do just about anything to make that evil minion of hell go away again.
So I tentatively acquiesced and listened to Yolanda’s new proposal. “Bentley, let’s not argue now. Take me to breakfast. Let’s go to The Swan and have our favorite breakfast crepes. We can discuss it then at a much more civil venue.” I hated The Swan. All done up in a baroque style that was so over done it dripped curlicues down onto the floor. Louis XIV would have enjoyed it I’m sure and I would have hated him. That much is certain.
“Sure. Fine.” I muttered. “Mind if I snag a shower first?”
“Absolutely – I’ll even scrub your back for you.” She giggled a bit at this.
“I think I got it, thanks.” Yeah, I am in big trouble. Yolanda had morphed into someone else. And I wasn’t sure which one was worse.
A few minutes later I had speed showered and thrown on my favorite jeans, a grey t-shirt and a light blue v-necked sweater. The clothes were a political move. They were the only clothes that I had ever picked out myself that she’d complimented me on. Everything else she hated. So the move was somewhat conciliatory and at the same time a declaration of my independence. Yolanda drove, as she normally did in her BMW 325, which I coveted. There was little chatter as we went. We were both too shell shocked and I was still uncertain of which Yolanda I had in the car with me and how to play it exactly.
Once we were seated and we both ordered our standard Blueberry Crepes the real square off began. I figured it was better to beat her to the punch.
“Yolanda, just hear me out. I have been extraordinarily crazy about you from the day we first met. I can still remember meeting you in the library of St. Stephen’s. The glances. The hinting. The guessing. It was sweet. Very awkward yet completely perfect.” I took a drink of water and as I did Yolanda folded her hands and cocked an eyebrow waiting for me to continue.
“And as we continued dating you and your family have introduced me to so many amazing people and experiences I never would have had without you.” I was warming up to something, but I couldn’t decide for myself exactly what it was that I was warming up to. I was doing something I was fairly well known for amongst my exes though – straddling the middle line, leaving all my options open right up until the deciding point. And I couldn’t decide if I was doubling down and going to ask her to marry me or break up with me. I literally paused to have a drink of water to allow me the time necessary to decide. I decided to take the plunge.
“Ok, listen… here’s the thing.” I was really sweating now. “I’m madly in love with someone else. You deserve better. And I’d only embarrass you the rest of your life.” I winced a bit at the end half expecting her to slap me right there in our favorite restaurant.
But she didn’t. She actually started laughing some. Quietly. But in a way that was way too upbeat for my liking. I was now thoroughly confused.
“Wah? I just told you I was madly in love with someone else. That I wanted you to break up with me. You heard that right? Yo? Are you ok?”
Yolanda motioned to the nearest waiter and had him take her untouched crepe away. And then she pulled out of her purse five coins and placed them on the table. She then crossed her arms and rested them on the table as she leaned my direction across the table and said, “Let’s stop pretending. Ok? Let’s stop acting like the two of us have no clue what is going on here. Alright? I’m done with the charades.”
I was off balance and had no idea what she could possibly be referring to. None. “Ok. Good? Right.” I coughed. “Like what?”
But she was the picture of calm. I had to admit, right now, even though I was the one who had bombed her she was the one in control. And I didn’t know why.
“First off… does this mean anything to you?” and with that the 5 coins began to lift off the table and spin independently of one another. At first it didn’t click. My brain was too distracted trying to find the source of the Alchemancy in the room. I felt it spin up and then arc through the air. But when I saw the coins spinning and Yolanda’s eyes sitting squarely on me I understood.
“Oh no, no no no.” I responded. “No no no no. Not cool at all. What is this about?”
“What this? This is nothing. Just a little magic trick I picked up at the corner magic store…” with that she floated her lipstick out of her purse and then began to lather an enormous dollop across her lips. “That trick I didn’t buy. I admit it. Jealous?”
“No. I mean, sure. I’ve never tried to…” cough. “I’ve never tried before. I guess you know I glitch then?”
“Bentley. We both know you do a whole lot more than just shift. Give it a go. I’ll even provide the coins… free of charge.” She pulled each coin out of the air and placed them on the table in front of me. This was definitely a dare. To attempt to TK in a public place for the first time was about as stupid as it got. I could grab some poor customer from another table for all I knew. Or the chandelier for that matter. When I had first started glitching my control was all over the map. There was no way I was going to attempt such a stupid move here in public for the first time.
But then as I stared down at the coins and thought about it… I began to think, I think I can do thisz Yeah, I can do this, I think. No… I’m sure I can. And as the confidence swelled inside of me I began sending out feelers to find the reservoir of power similar to what Yolanda had just invoked. And as I concentrated I was aware that the world around me went quiet and dim. I began to see the coins in front of me as levers and the power circulating my brain as the driving force that would pull on the levers.
As gently as I could I grabbed the penny with my mind and began to lift it from the table. My eyes were closed at first. When I opened them the penny was still lying on the table. Hrmm. So I threw more weight behind my lift. Still nothing.
Yolanda had a bemused look on her face. A bit of a laugh that I took to be insulting. Which throttled more power to the afterburners, which I then threw at the penny with all I had. And just like that all kinds of craziness happened.
I had apparently taken hold of the table next to ours and lifted it off the ground a foot or so. Yolanda thought it amusing because the people sitting at the table were completely dumbfounded at what was happening. They were beginning to investigate the source of the problem with the table when all of a sudden my anger exploded and threw the table into the air.
Thankfully Yolanda caught the table and lowered it as she laughed and laughed. Under her breath she said, “I think we should probably go now.” She continued laughing as she grabbed her purse, threw a twenty at the table, grabbed her jacket and starting beating it for the door. I was still in wide-eyed shock at what had just happened. “Come on!” and so I ran.
As we ran through the front door we headed across the street into a park. And as we continued to run the pigeons exploded into flight all around us. I considered glitching the moment into a pause to hold the moment closer. It seemed like a beautiful thing, our running, this park and these pigeons. I couldn’t remember being this happy or this content throughout our entire relationship.
Yolanda found a bench and fell over onto it laughing. I parked next to her with a very baffled look on my face. “What happened back there? I thought I had it.”
“You had it alright. You had the entire table… the wrong entire table. I seriously think that it hit the ceiling. You are lucky I caught it – you could have hurt that couple!” At that she continued her laughter. Tears ran down her face as she laughed all the more. It was contagious. I was laughing too unreservedly now. I had to admit, it was pretty funny. Even if extremely ill advised.
“Wow. Thank you for breaking up with me so I could get a good laugh in.” Yolanda responded after finally catching her breath. “About that. Where are we now? You were in the middle of sending me packing a second ago. Would you like to tidy that up a bit?”
“Right.” I had no idea what to do now. Might as well forge ahead and see what happens. Though I was a bit daunted now that I knew she could throw me into traffic if she wanted to. “Everything has been changing very very quickly of late. It’s almost too fast for me to grapple with. The glitching…”
Yolanda interrupted at this. “No offense, but its called Shifting. The official council is called The Shifts Council. Not Glitch Council. Just saying.”
“Whatever. The Shifts, this new world, the hidden people standing in plain sight of the rest of the world. It’s hard to wrap my head around it all. Early on I almost got myself killed trying to rescue a family from a car accident.”
“Yeah, I know.” Answered Yolanda.
“You do? How?” I asked incredulously.
“I just do. It was about as high profile a move as it gets. Generally the councils frown on that sort of thing. They hear about everything. And so I heard. I wondered where you had wandered off to – so I tracked you down. I even visited you in the hospital…” a tear welled up in her eye at this. What was this? What was going on? Who is this woman? And where has she been throughout our entire relationship?
“And then there was this Celtic woman…” I tried to bring her front and center in order to just put some distance between us. This was all just too much for me to handle.
“Right, the love of your life as I recall.” Yolanda unceremoniously wiped the stray tear from her face and then continued again. “By the way, you do know that she’s in love with someone else, right? They’ve been a thing for years. I really don’t think Derek will take too kindly to your butting in. Being a juggernaut, he’s probably the last person you should be screwing around with.”
I’m sure my face fell visibly. I couldn’t believe it. How could I be so stupid?
